SACW | 12 August 2005
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Thu Aug 11 19:50:13 CDT 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire |12 August, 2005
[1] Hiroshima Memories Don't Deter South Asia's Hawks (J. Sri Raman)
[2] 1984 riots and the Nanavati commission report and beyond:
(i) Moral indifference as the form of modern evil (Siddharth Varadarajan)
(ii) Nanavati Commission Report and the UPA Government (Sandip K. Dasverma)
[3] India: Press Release by Committee for Inquiry on December 13
[4] India - Pakistan: Religion, Patriarchy and women
(i) India and Pakistan's deadly code of dishonour (Salman Rushdie)
(ii) Press Release by Muslims for Secular Democracy [India]
(iii) Support the victim, not the crime (Subhashini Ali)
(iv) A women's parliament, organised by the All
India Progressive Women's Association
[5] India: Citizens' forum criticises ruling striking down IMDT Act
[6] India: Dalit movement at the Cross Road (V.B.Rawat)
______
[1]
truthout.org
09 August 2005
HIROSHIMA MEMORIES DON'T DETER SOUTH ASIA'S HAWKS
By J. Sri Raman
Two messages have gone out to the people of India
during the Hiroshima-Nagasaki week, ending today.
The first went out from the peace movement, and
it pointed to the greater and graver significance
of the occasion for the world and South Asia. The
second was a loud and clear signal from the
rulers of India and Pakistan - that they were
united in their resolve not to let the long-past
Japanese tragedy affect their nuclear weapons
programs at all.
India, in fact, is currently witnessing a
campaign by nuclear militarists for a
strengthening of the county's nuclear-weapons
program.
The peace movement was at pains to tell the
people that the 60th anniversary of
Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombings was of special
significance for two reasons. The anniversary had
come at a time when the militarist forces led by
the George Bush administration in Washington
threatened not only more wars but also a new
legitimacy to nuclear weapons. The "window of
opportunity" for an advance toward nuclear
disarmament, which the overly-optimistic had seen
opening after the end of the cold war, has been
shut firmly and finally with Washington
announcing at various forums its determination to
go ahead with plans for "usable" nuclear weapons
for "winnable" nuclear wars.
The situation, the movement pointed out in
rallies across India, was particularly serious in
south Asia, despite the much-vaunted
India-Pakistan peace process. It was recalled
that this process, which had produced some
welcome measures to promote people-to-people
relations, had been kept studiously away from the
issue of nuclear weapons.
The recent India-US nuclear accord, the
movement stressed, did not promise further
progress on this front from the process.
Off and on, of course, the subcontinent has
been treated to minor spectacles of talks between
Indian and Pakistani mandarins on nuclear "CBMs"
(confidence-building measures).
Little has come out of the 18-months-long
process, however, that can inspire any confidence
among sections of the populace not convinced thus
far about the claimed peace dividends of the nuke
programs.
Only a couple of mice have crawled out of the
mountain of peace labor, as pro-official sections
of the media have projected the alleged quest for
CBMs. One was an agreement on setting up a
hotline between the DGMOs (Directorates-General
of Military Operations) of the two countries,
which has evidently not banished the horror of a
nuclear war forever. The other was the idea of a
system of pre-notification of each other about
missile tests by the nuclear-armed rivals.
Yet another round of talks between Indian and
Pakistani experts, held in New Delhi between the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki days, made no concrete
progress despite the conspicuous "cordiality" of
polite smiles and prolonged handshakes. During
the talks of August 8, it was decided to upgrade
the hotline and set up another between the two
foreign secretaries. It has also been announced
that the missile notification will be in place,
though no details are available about how the
reported differences over the notification format
were resolved. There seems to be a tacit
agreement on withholding information about the
trajectory of the tested missile.
The talks have totally avoided, so far, the
possibility of de-deployment of nuclear-armed
missiles and a de-alerting of nuclear weapons on
either side. Even concerted measures for nuclear
safety have remained conspicuous by their absence
in the agenda before the official experts.
The results of this round have encouraged
nuclear hawks in India to step up their campaign
for a reinforcement of the country's nuclear
arsenal and a promotion of the place of its
nuclear-weapon program in its defense policy and
practice.
As we have noted before in these columns, the
hawks have been as harsh in their criticism of
the India-US nuclear deal as the peace activists.
An initial point of criticism was that the deal
might eventually dictate a "cap" on the program.
With the India-Pakistan dialogue now reinforcing
New Delhi's reassurance in this regard,
suggestions for a stronger Indian nuclear arsenal
have become more specific. Security analyst
Bharat Karnad, for example, has urged the
government to prove that the deal won't deter
India from going for production of thermonuclear
weapons.
He argues that these weapons "offer far more
bang for the buck and, with megaton yield, create
disproportionate political leverage and sort of
psychological dread that enables deterrence and
dissuasion to work even against the most powerful
states."
Pro-deal but no less prominent a hawk, C.
Raja Mohan argues that their failure to adopt
nuclear CBMs may actually spell success in
adopting "conventional CBMs." These, he says, can
be carried to the extent of a "phased and
balanced reduction of forces," as part of a
"military modernization." The argument amounts to
one, actually, for a central place for nuclear
weapons in the defense policies of both India and
Pakistan.
The Hiroshima-Nagasaki week has come and
gone, leaving India's peace movement preparing to
face a tougher challenge over the coming years.
______
[2]
(i)
The Hindu
August 12, 2005
MORAL INDIFFERENCE AS THE FORM OF MODERN EVIL
Siddharth Varadarajan
India is the only democracy in the world where
politicians and policemen responsible for mass
murder, from Delhi in 1984 to Gujarat in 2002,
are allowed to thrive while their victims live
lives of penury and despair. It's time we put a
stop to this.
RECOUNTING THE massacre of Jews during the First
Crusade in and around the German city of Cologne
in 1096, the anonymous authors of the 12th
century Solomon bar Simson chronicle asked
plaintively, "Why did the heavens not darken and
the skies withhold their radiance; why did not
the sun and moon turn dark?" The historian, Arno
Mayer, poses the same question in his treatise on
the Holocaust and `answers' it with Walter
Benjamin's assertion, made on the eve of Europe's
tryst with genocide, that there is no
philosophical basis for our "astonishment that
the things we are currently experiencing should
`still' be possible in the 20th century."
If many Indians were genuinely `astonished' by
the well-organised killing of Muslim fellow
citizens in Gujarat in 2002 - by the fact that
such evil was "still" possible in the 21st
century - this was because they had chosen to
forget November 1984, the one reference point
which made that violence not just intelligible
but possible as well.
Twenty-one years after it occurred, the genocidal
killing of 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi, Kanpur, Bokaro,
and other cities in November 1984 has been
brought alive for both victim and perpetrator by
the report of the Justice Nanavati Commission of
Inquiry. Mr. Justice Nanavati's labours have
served to shake us out of our collective slumber
and for that we should be grateful. But the
learned judge's report is also disappointing for
he has pulled his punches at a time when the
country needed a knockout blow to protect itself
from a "riot system" that has become so
well-entrenched and institutionalised that any
ruling party anywhere in the country can use it
with impunity. Above all, he has written a
whodunit without an ending - at a time when the
victims and the national conscience urgently need
a sense of closure. He concludes that the
violence was "organised" and involved "the
backing and help of influential and resourceful
persons" but then blithely states that there is
"absolutely no evidence" to show high-ranking
Congress leaders were involved.
Benjamin was German and Jewish and he wrote the
lines quoted above in 1940, in a Europe
overwhelmed by dictatorship and war. A few months
later, he took his own life. The worst crimes of
the Nazis were yet to come but Benjamin, who had
witnessed Kristallnacht - the November 1938
pogrom in which SS and SA thugs torched
synagogues and Jewish homes and shops across
Germany because a German diplomat in Paris had
been assassinated by a young Jewish man -
understood what was about to unfold.
Like Benjamin, Rajiv Gandhi too counselled
against astonishment but his was an argument
informed more by moral indifference than by a
desire to change the world. As Prime Minister of
India, Rajiv had witnessed - indeed, presided
over, if we accept the doctrine of command
responsibility - events in his own capital that
were even more ferocious than Kristallnacht. In a
speech at the Boat Club in Delhi on November 19,
1984 to commemorate the birth anniversary of his
assassinated mother, he told the country there
was no need to be shocked or saddened: "Some
riots took place in the country following the
murder of Indiraji. We know the people were very
angry and for a few days it seemed as if India
had been shaken. But when a mighty tree falls,
the earth around is bound to shake."
A few months later, in an interview to M.J. Akbar
in Sunday magazine (March 10-16, 1985), Rajiv
again sought to rationalise the November 1984
killings by arguing that the violence was
extensive only in those areas where Sikhs
(allegedly) distributed sweets to celebrate his
mother's assassination. In other statements at
the time, Rajiv elaborated on this morally
corrosive line of reasoning, telling The Hindu ,
for example, that a judicial inquiry into the
November 1984 massacre "would not be in the
interest of Sikhs" (February 20, 1985). Apart
from their ominous undertone, such statements
were factually wrong, relying as they did on the
canard about Sikh `celebrations' and the
`spontaneous' outpouring of public grief. If the
violence had been spontaneous, the bulk of the
killing would have occurred on October 31, the
day Indira Gandhi was shot, and not November 1.
Clearly somebody high up in the government and
party hierarchy planned something in that
intervening night.
In an essay on the challenges posed by the
Holocaust to philosophy, the German sociologist
Rainer C. Baum described moral indifference as
the definitive form of modern evil (in Echoes
from the Holocaust: Reflections on a Dark Time,
eds. Alan Rosenberg and Gerald E. Myers, Temple
University Press, 1988). Even if Mr. Justice
Nanavati is correct in saying there is no
evidence connecting Rajiv Gandhi or other senior
leaders to the killings, their moral guilt is
manifest from their behaviour both during the
violence and after. At no time did either Rajiv
Gandhi or any other senior Minister display the
slightest interest in understanding how such a
terrible crime could have been committed on their
watch, in ordering an inquiry, in ensuring that
forensic and other forms of evidence were
collected in a timely fashion so that the guilt
of the perpetrators could be established swiftly.
This is the way a leadership that was genuinely
unaware of what was going on would have acted
after the event. Conversely, it is only a
government that knew it had something dreadful to
hide that could behave the way the Rajiv Gandhi
Government did in the weeks, months, and even
years following November 1984.
Shabby attempts were made to shut down the relief
camps and send the victims of the violence back
to their burnt-out homes within a week of the
massacre (the High Court had to intervene to put
a stop to this). A judicial inquiry was set up
only in mid-1985, which began collecting
depositions only the following year. None of the
politicians against whom credible charges existed
was cross-examined. Hearings were held in camera.
Meanwhile, the Delhi police worked overtime to
sabotage the few criminal cases they had been
forced to register. Only the naïve or the
politically motivated can believe that this was
happenstance, the product of a few bad apples.
Dots not connected
Modern states do not allow small men like Jagdish
Tytler, Dharamdas Shastri and Sajjan Kumar to
unleash - as part of some sort of private
initiative - murder on a genocidal scale. Modern
states do not allow their police system to fall
apart, except by design. Modern states do not
allow Army commanders to say they do not have
enough troops to do the job at hand. Littered
through Mr. Justice Nanavati's text are all the
telltale dots of official guilt but these have
been left unconnected, allowing the institutional
rot to remain and infect our body politic again
in the future. His philosophical approach - in
which effects can exist without causes - does not
augur well for the Gujarat violence inquiry
report he will prepare next.
After initially prevaricating, Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh has ousted Jagdish Tytler from his
Cabinet. But this is, at best, a rectification of
the error he made in inducting Mr. Tytler in the
first place. Dr. Singh has also promised the
re-opening of cases mentioned in the Nanavati
report, including those in which his party
colleagues stand accused. In fact, this process
has to be more thorough. Every 1984-related case
that ended in an acquittal - particularly those
where Congress leaders or policemen were the
defendants - should be re-opened using the
Supreme Court's Best Bakery judgment as legal
precedent. A special court needs to be
established with a dedicated prosecutorial team
that enjoys the confidence of the victims so that
these cases can proceed expeditiously.
Finally, the Government must introduce a
well-formulated law to deal with genocidal or
mass violence of the kind experienced in Delhi in
1984 or Gujarat in 2002. It is well known that
the Indian Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure
Code, and the Indian Evidence Act are not
equipped to deal with such incidents. Dereliction
of duty should be considered as serious an
offence in a situation of mass violence as active
connivance with the mob. The law must enshrine
the principles of vicarious criminal and
administrative liability as well as the doctrine
of command responsibility - both settled concepts
in international humanitarian law. The failure of
a policeman, bureaucrat or Minister to take "all
necessary and reasonable measures" within his or
her power to prevent or repress the commission of
mass violence must render the individual
concerned liable for prosecution and exemplary
punishment. Unfortunately - but typically - the
draft law prepared by the Ministry of Home
Affairs - and now being considered by the Law
Ministry - proposes none of these things.
o o o o
(ii)
NANAVATI COMMISSION REPORT AND THE UPA GOVERNMENT
Sandip K. Dasverma
[August 10, 2005]
A massacre is a massacre and the perpetrators should be punished,
irrespective of who they are. I believe the perpetrators are cowards and
opportunists, who believe they can get away, with no punishment even for
murder. This encourages others to follow suit. If 1984 criminals had have
been punished swiftly, the1993 Bombay pogroms would not have happened, nor
the 2002 genocide in Gujarat, because the criminals in 2002 would have known
that there were noose and gallows for murder, at the end of the day. On all
fairness, there must be exemplary punishment for both the politicians and
the policemen (including those retired) to signify that no person gets away
putting another's life in jeopardy, by his acts of omission or commission.
The politicians like Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, Kamal Nath, Vasant Sathe,
H. K. L. Bhagat and others should be punished both by prohibiting their
participation in elections (their source of power) and prosecuting them for
their culpability. After all there are nearly 2800 dead bodies even per the
GOI report, though the unofficial count is more than 4000. Following the
great traditions established by the British Raj, citizens even today can't
get a correct figure from their own government. Be it as it may, if there
are 2800 dead bodies, as per Government's own admission, and not even 28
going to gallows or even getting life sentences, there is something
seriously wrong with the government. People will be aghast at this mockery
of justice.
It is outrageous to advance the plea that H. K. L. Bhagat should not be
bothered as he is old and sick. I think this exculpatory nonsense must stop.
The international standards are now being set by the prosecution of 90-
year old Pinochet in Chile. Why so much compassion for a low life who did
not have the same consideration for others? I remember he was given the
benefit of doubt by a previous commission, while a widow and her husband's
dead body were given no credence! Such is the bias of the Indian judicial
system in favor of the rich and powerful. What the commissions, nine of
them over 20 years, have done is to spend public money, enormous amounts of
it to chip away, from the list of the accused, one at a time. And always
some pliable judges have been rewarded remunerative appointments, be it in
the Congress or BJP regime.
This culture of crime and its condonement must change once and for all if
India is to get anywhere. We can't remain in the list of most corrupt
nations, i.e., the list of least transparent nations, and continue clamoring
for acceptance as a world leader in our own right. Unless we cleanse the
institutional rot, like the compromised judiciary, the powerful will
continue buying their way out, as has happened in the Dabhol case.
This brings us to the very vital point of speed problematic in the judicial
trials in India. If criminal cases linger far too long (by design the
accused always engineer it), then everyone will grow old and on
"compassionate grounds" the criminals would be let go, even if they don't
die naturally. The government's performance should be judged by how
efficiently it can deliver justice and how soon. There is time as value
which every one in the world now understands except the Indian bureaucracy
and the judiciary. We must have a fast track court which should conclude
such cases within two years. Yes, well before the next election, at most,
so we can judge the UPA government by its actions whether it is truly
secular or just expediently so? Then people in India can decide whether
they commend or condemn such acts.
There is need for a law that stipulates that those whose names are recurring
in nine reports should be asked to prove that they are not guilty. And this
should be done expeditiously so that the affected and wronged families feel
that justice was done. That way people be sure that there is a fair chance
of grievances of the small fry being addressed.
Having a Sikh P.M. does not mitigate the crimes or absolve the state of its
failure to punish the criminals. If tomorrow the BJP in its turn appoints a
Muslim as the CM of their next Government in Gujarat, for example, it will
not be absolved of the crimes of Narendra Modi government, not even if they
install a Muslim as the PM of India.
There should be a parallel process, another fast track court, to try and
convict all the police officials and administrative staff, including those
either retired or preparing to retire soon.
Again, enough resources should be put on the table for the whole process to
be finished in just two years or before. This is equally important, nay
more important, because it will set the standards for the present and future
police against colluding with the politicians in power. Punishment even
after retirement, amended laws, and removal of procedural bottlenecks along
the way, will firmly ensure that justice prevails, and the vestiges of
colonial rule disappear. Sycophancy will have been made risky and
punishment for crime inescapably established.
May I request Dr. Manmohan Singh, the head of the Congress-led UPA
Government, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the head of the Congress party, their left
allies, and the bureaucracy et al for this once to rise above cronyism and
let the law take its course with exemplary swiftness characteristic of
modern societies in the world that India aspires to become a leading light
of?
--
Sandip K. Dasverma
Richland,
______
[3]
Committee for Inquiry on December 13
5B Imperial Avenue, Delhi 110 007
Phone: 27667209, 27666253, 9810169360
PRESS RELEASE
Within days of the terrorist attack on Parliament
on 13th December 2001, the NDA government
initiated a full scale mobilisation for war
against Pakistan, saying that the terrorists were
Pakistanis sponsored by the Pakistan Government.
That mobilization brought us to the brink of a
nuclear confrontation with Pakistan, cost the
public exchequer almost 10,000 Crores, led to the
death of about 800 soldiers, over a hundred
children and the loss of livelihood of thousands
of farmers living in the border areas.
The only evidence of the identity of the
terrorists was the alleged identification of them
by Afzal to the police and his confessional
statement. Afzal along with Shaukat, Afsan and
Geelani had been arrested by the Special Cell of
the Delhi police, which claimed to have solved
the case with remarkable speed. Afzal's
confession along with Shaukat's had been obtained
by the Special cell before their DCP, since under
POTA confessions before police officers became
admissible in evidence.
The Supreme Court has however acquitted Geelani,
Shaukat and Afsan of the charges of conspiracy
blowing a gaping hole in the conspiracy story
concocted by the Special Cell, which was
faithfully reproduced by sections of the media
again and again, even during the trial. The court
has however convicted Shaukat of an entirely new
charge of concealing knowledge of the conspiracy,
though he was neither charged of this offence,
nor was there any argument in court on this
issue. The Court has also made unfortunate,
unjustified and entirely uncalled for remarks
against Geelani, that because he laughed in a
conversation with his brother, he must have
approved of the attacks
Afzal has been convicted of conspiracy primarily
on the basis of statements of police witnesses
and seizures of materials from him shown by the
police, which went unrebutted during trial,
because Afzal was practically unrepresented in
the trial. Be that as it may, the fact remains
that the court has acquitted 3 of the 4 persons
charged of conspiracy and has held that the
manner and circumstances in which the confessions
were obtained, makes them unreliable.
However, it is only on the basis of these
unreliable confessions that the then government
immediately committed the country to a full scale
war mobilisation against Pakistan with the
possibility that it might have escalated to a
nuclear war. The mobilisation was used by the NDA
government for political purposes. POTA was
immediately
enacted, and anti-Pakistan as well as communal
feelings were whipped up in the war hysteria
which was drummed up taking advantage of the
attack on Parliament.
No attempt was made to properly identify the
persons who attacked Parliament. Instead of a
proper high level inquiry into such an enormous
conspiracy which shook the foundations of the
republic, the government of the day was content
with the facile and self-serving story concocted
by the Special Cell and based primarily on
confessions extracted by the Cell in their own
custody, when everyone knows how such confessions
are extracted. With the confessions set aside, we
do not know the identity of the militants, though
the then Home Minster L. K. Advani said that they
looked like Pakistanis!
Moreover, Afzal, the only person found guilty by
the Apex Court of conspiracy, is a surrendered
militant, who was not only supposed to report
regularly to the Special Task Force of J&K, but
was also under their surveillance. How could such
a person mastermind and execute such a complex
conspiracy? And how could a terrorist
organisation rely upon such a person as the
principal link for their operation? On whose
behest was he acting? Is there some credibility
to his statement that both the leader of the
attack, Mohammad, and that one of the masterminds
in Kashmir, Tariq actually belonged to the
Special Task Force? And what of the Press report
from Thane (Times of India, Pune edition, 26
December 2001) that 4 terrorists including one
Hamza (the same name as one of the terrorists
killed in the parliament attacks, identified by
Afzal) had been arrested by the Thane police in
November 2000 and handed over to the J&K police
for further investigation? Even after three
judgements by the courts, these questions remain
unanswered. It will be a travesty of justice to
hang Afzal without ascertaining answers to these
questions.
In any case, it seems clear that there has at
least been gross negligence on the part of
someone in the Special Task Force for them to
have been unaware of such a conspiracy planned
under their noses by a surrendered militant, who
was supposed to be under their surveillance. It
is also clear that the Special Cell of Delhi
police tried to frame at least three innocent
persons. The High Court had found the
investigating agency guilty of producing false
arrest memos, doctoring telephone conversations
and illegal confinement of people to force them
to sign blank papers. It is also clear that false
confessions were extracted by torture. All this,
along with the serious questions that have been
raised by reputed civil liberties organisations
about the encounter killings carried out by this
Special Cell, require that the methods of this
rogue police cell, which functions as a law unto
itself, be investigated and it be made
accountable.
These are grave and momentous issues for the
future of our democracy. In these circumstances,
it is necessary that there be a full scale and in
depth Parliamentary inquiry into all these
issues. The country must learn the truth behind
the attacks. Those guilty of negligence,
concoction of evidence etc. must be held
accountable. And above all, those who almost took
the country to war in such a reckless manner must
be made accountable.
(NIRMALA DESHPANDE)
Chairperson
______
[4] [Religion Patriarchy and Women in South Asia]
(i)
Toronto Star
July. 18, 2005
INDIA AND PAKISTAN'S DEADLY CODE OF DISHONOUR
In honour-and-shame cultures like those of India
and Pakistan, male honour resides in the sexual
probity of women, and the "shaming" of women
dishonours all men. So it is that five men of
Pakistan's powerful Matsoi tribe were
disgracefully acquitted of raping a villager
named Mukhtar Mai three years ago. Theirs was an
"honour rape," intended to punish a relative of
Mukhtar for having been seen with a Matsoi woman.
The acquittals have now been suspended by the
Pakistan Supreme Court and there is finally a
chance that this courageous woman may gain some
measure of redress for her violation.
Pakistan, however, has little to be proud of. The
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that
there were 320 reported rapes in the first nine
months of last year, and 350 reported gang rapes
in the same period. The number of unreported
rapes is believed to be much larger. The victim
pressed charges in only one-third of the reported
cases, and a mere 39 arrests were made. The use
of rape in tribal disputes has become, one might
say, normal. And the belief that a raped woman's
best recourse is to kill herself remains
widespread and deeply ingrained.
For every Mukhtar Mai there are dozens of such
suicides. Nor is courage any guarantee of getting
justice, as the case of Shazia Khalid shows. Dr.
Khalid was raped last year in the province of
Baluchistan by security personnel at the hospital
where she worked. A Pakistani tribunal failed to
convict anyone of the crime.
Khalid says that she was subsequently "threatened
so many times" that she was forced to flee
Pakistan. "I was hounded out," she says,
expressing dissatisfaction that the government
neither brought her attackers to justice nor
protected her from the threats that followed.
That is the same government, led by President
Pervez Musharraf, that confiscated Mai's passport
because it feared she would go abroad and say
things that would bring Pakistan into disrepute;
and it is the same government that has allied
with the West in the war on terrorism, but seems
quite prepared to allow a war of sexual terror to
be waged against its female citizens.
Now comes even worse news. Whatever Pakistan can
do, India, it seems, can trump. The so-called
Imrana case, in which a Muslim woman from a
village in northern India says she was raped by
her father-in-law, has brought forth a ruling
from the powerful Islamist seminary Darul-Uloom
ordering her to leave her husband because as a
result of the rape she has become haram (unclean)
for him. "It does not matter," a Deobandi cleric
has stated, "if it was consensual or forced."
Darul-Uloom, in the village of Deoband 90 miles
north of Delhi, is the birthplace of the
ultra-conservative Deobandi cult, in whose
madrassas the Taliban were trained. It teaches
the most fundamentalist, narrow, puritan, rigid,
oppressive version of Islam that exists anywhere
in the world today. In one fatwa it suggested
that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Not only the Taliban but also the assassins of
The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
were followers of Deobandi teachings.
Darul-Uloom's rigid interpretations of sharia law
are notorious, and immensely influential - so
much so that the victim, Imrana, a woman under
unimaginable pressure, has said she will abide by
the seminary's decision in spite of the
widespread outcry in India against it. An
innocent woman, she will leave her husband
because of his father's crime.
Why does a mere seminary have the power to issue
such judgments? The answer lies in the strange
anomaly that is the Muslim personal law system -
a parallel legal system for Indian Muslims, which
leaves women like Imrana at the mercy of the
mullahs. Such is the historical confusion on this
vexed subject that anyone who suggests that a
democratic country should have a single, unified
legal system is accused of being anti-Muslim and
in favour of the hardline Hindu nationalists.
In the 1980s, a divorced woman named Shah Bano
was granted "maintenance money" by the Indian
Supreme Court. But there is no alimony under
Islamic law, so orthodox Indian Islamists like
those at Darul-Uloom protested that this ruling
infringed the Muslim Personal Law, and they
founded the All-India Muslim Law Board to mount
protests. The government caved in, passing a bill
denying alimony to divorced Muslim women. Ever
since Shah Bano, Indian politicians have not
dared to challenge the power of Islamist clerical
grandees.
In the Imrana case, the All-India Muslim Law
Board has unsurprisingly backed the Darul-Uloom
decision, though many other Muslim and non-Muslim
organizations and individuals have denounced it.
Shockingly, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh,
Mulayam Singh Yadav, has also backed the
Darul-Uloom fatwa. "The decision of the Muslim
religious leaders in the Imrana case must have
been taken after a lot of thought," he told
reporters in Lucknow. "The religious leaders are
all very learned and they understand the Muslim
community and its sentiments."
This is a craven statement. The "culture" of rape
that exists in India and Pakistan arises from
profound social anomalies, its origins lying in
the unchanging harshness of a moral code based on
the concepts of honour and shame. Thanks to that
code's ruthlessness, raped women will go on
hanging themselves in the woods and walking into
rivers to drown themselves. It will take
generations to change that. Meanwhile, the law
must do what it can.
In Pakistan, the Supreme Court has taken one
small but significant step in the matter of Mai;
now it is for the police and politicians to start
pursuing rapists instead of hounding their
victims. As for India, at the risk of being
called a communalist, I must agree that any
country that claims to be a modern, secular
democracy must secularize and unify its legal
system, and take power over women's lives away,
once and for all, from medievalist Diinstitutions
like Darul-Uloom.
(Salman Rushdie is the author of The Satanic
Verses and the forthcoming Shalimar the Clown.)
o o o o
(ii)
Muslims for Secular Democracy
Press Release
June 28, 2005
DEOBAND FATWA INHUMAN AND ANTI-WOMEN
Muslims for Secular Democracy (MSD) is horrified
at the fatwa of a mufti from Darul
Uloom, Deoband declaring that Ms. Imrana, a
victim of rape by her own father-in-law,
can no longer live with her husband.
The reported fatwa of Mufti Habibur Rahman is
unacceptable because it is illogical,
irrational and against all principles of natural
justice for it effectively punishes the victim
and not the culprit of the crime. It is nothing
short of a double victimization of Ms.
Imrana.
Without laying any claim to expertise in Shariah, Muslims for Secular Democracy
emphatically states that above all, Islam teaches
compassion (insaniyat), justice (insaaf),
equality and a fair deal for women. The fatwa on
the other hand is inhuman and unfair,
which treats women as mere commodity. By its
virtual endorsement of the Deobandi
fatwa, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board
(AIMPLB), too, has disgraced itself and
once again shown itself to be a male-centric body.
We salute the husband of Ms. Imrana, who despite
the outrageous proclamation of the
local panchayat had so far stood by his
traumatized wife. The Deoband fatwa and its
endorsement by the AIMPLB is nothing short of the
terrorizing of an already traumatized
family.
MSD expresses its unhesitating solidarity with
Ms. Imrana, her husband and her children
and demands speedy prosecution and exemplary
punishment of her father-in-law, as per
Indian law.
Javed Akhtar Javed Anand
President General Secretary
Muslims for Secular Democracy
Nirant, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu, Mumbai - 400049;
e-mail: msd_in at rediffmail.com
o o o o
(iii)
Kashmir Times
July 7, 2005
SUPPORT THE VICTIM, NOT THE CRIME
Subhashini Ali
The Muzaffarnagar District of U.P. has a
reputation of being the crime center of Uttar
Pradesh. Not only does it top the crime graph,
but it has a tradition of caste panchayats -- of
Jats, of dalits, of other Hindu castes and also
of Muslims.
These caste panchayats have been passing the most
horrific and barbaric edicts with impunity. As a
result, there have been lynchings, forced
marriages, vicious and violent attacks -- mostly
on women, dalits and poor people. Neither the
district administration nor the State Government
has made the slightest effort to intervene and
put an end to this endless tale of
community-inflicted violence and injustice. With
increased reliance being placed on communal and
caste mobilisation for votes and power by the
major political parties the situation has only
worsened.
The most recent example of this is the Imrana
case. Imrana, wife of Noor Elahi, lived with her
husband, their five children and his parents in
his home in Charthawal village. In the first week
of June, she was raped by her father-in-law, Ali
Mohammad while she was asleep in her small room.
Weeping bitterly, she went to her mother-in-law
in the next room and complained. Her
mother-in-law begged her to keep quiet and
promised to teach her husband a lesson.
Noor Elahi was away from home working on a
brick-kiln. Three days later, Imrana's brother's
wife came to visit her and was told of the
incident. When she told her husband and
brothers-in-law, they came to Charthawal and beat
Ali Mohammad up. It was then that others in the
village came to know of the incident and a
'panchayat' of their caste was held. While the
panchayat found Ali Mohammad guilty of rape and
said that he should be punished by the courts,
they also decided that Imrana could no longer
live with her husband since she was now like his
'mother'.
Significantly, no one from the community or the
religious organisations came forward to help
Imrana or to take her to the police or the
hospital. Some women activists performed these
important tasks. This gave Imrana and her husband
the confidence to defy the panchayat's edict and
live together in her maternal home.
On June 25th, however, one maulana of the Darul
Uloom, Deoband, responding to a question by
someone from Delhi, said that according to
Shariat law, Imrana could not continue to stay
with her husband who should leave her
immediately. Darul Uloom wields considerable
influence in the area, and when word of this got
around Ali Mohammad was forced to leave his wife
and children. Both he and Imrana were told
repeatedly that it was their religious duty to
obey this interpretation.
This incident has generated a tremendous amount
of controversy. Several religious leaders and
Islamic scholars of repute like Dr. Tahir
Mehmood, Maulana, Dr. Karim Madni, Janab Kalbe
Sadiq, some members of the AIMPLB, and many
prominent Muslims have denounced this 'fatwa' as
being unIslamic, unjust and totally unacceptable.
Many others have supported it.
The All-India Democractic Women's Association
(AIDWA) had intervened in the matter when it
condemned the decision of the caste panchayat.
Subsequently, when the Darul Uloom fatwa
separated Imrana from her husband we decided to
hold a protest demonstration in Muzaffarnagar
itself. At very short notice and although there
is no AIDWA unit in the district, a large
demonstration was held on June 30. More than 300
activists from Bijor, Saharanpur and Delhi, along
with members of Disha, Mahila Samakhya, Asthitv,
Parcham assembled in the city.
Early in the morning, Razia Nagqvi and I went to
the village and met Imrana. She is in a terribly
depressed and traumatic state. While she keeps
repeating that she cannot go against her religion
she also says that she wants, and hopes for,
justice. The villagers, both Hindus and Muslims,
are supportive of her and feel that she has been
very unjustly treated.
Before the demonstration, Ashalata, Sehba
Farooqui (AIDWA), Rehana Asthitv), Disha (Mahila
Samakhya), and I were able to meet the
Chairperson of the National Commission for Women
who was also in Muzaffarnagar to meet Imrana and
her husband. We met Imrana there again. We
requested the Chairperson, Girija Vyas, to ensure
that Imrana and her husband were given all
support and protection, and she assured us that
this was her intention.
Soon after noon, our procession started with
banners and numerous placards demanding justice
for Imrana, assuring her that she was not alone
in her battle for justice, shouting slogans of
women's unity and determination; the commitment
and anger of the processionists was apparent. As
we went through the crowded streets, people came
out of their shops and stopped in their tracks --
they had never seen a women's procession before!
And they had certainly not seen such angry and
determined women in their lives.
The procession went right into the District Court
and a big public meeting was held there. It was
encouraging that no one came to oppose us and our
stand. Many of the lawyers and other people
listened, congratulated us, and said that they
supported our cause and were tired of what was
going on in the name of tradition and religion.
We were told that just a few days ago, in
Charthawal itself, a rapist was given five slaps
with a slipper as punishment by the panchayat!
The meeting was addressed by Sehba Farooqui,
Rehana, Naseem, Saira, Ashalata, Aruna, Naseema
and myself. In the middle of the meeting, a
young, burqa-clad woman came to the mike and said
she wanted to speak. She was Azizan who also
lived in Charthawal. She seemed to be a poor
woman who had come out of curiosity, but
proceeded to amaze all of us by what she had to
say. She said "Imrana is not the only one. In our
village the fathers of most of the young men who
are away -- whether they have gone for work, or
they are in jail or whatever - force their
daughters-in-law to have sexual relations with
them. If this is what is happening to Imrana, who
will ever dare to speak out?"
This is the question that is troubling everyone
-- the fact that in a heinous case of rape, it is
the victim who is being punished. As the speakers
said, the Imrana case has once again demonstrated
that religious courts and organisations cannot be
given the right to implement their judgments; it
has once again demonstrated that personal laws
have to be reformed on the basis of gender
justice and human rights, and then codified.
The incident has also demonstrated how
fundamentalists of one hue encourage and
strengthen those of another -- the alacrity with
which the BJP has jumped to the 'defence' of
Muslim women when it has always thwarted all
attempts to reform laws in favour of Hindu women
is a telling example of this. The speakers also
condemned not only the administration for its
silence but also the Chief Minister, Mulayam
Singh Yadav who had announced that Imrana's fate
was best left to be decided by 'wise' religious
men. They said that since he is committed to
upholding the Constitution he is bound to protect
citizens like Imrana and her husband and give
them all the support they need.
As the rally ended, the participants, and many of
those who had been listening, expressed their
commitment to fighting the kind of injustice that
Imrana, and many others like her were facing.
The writer is a former member of parliament and
the general secretary of All India Democratic
Women's Association.
o o o o
(iii)
o o o o
(iv)
IMRANA-WOMEN
LUCKNOW, JULY 30 (PTI)
A women's parliament, organised by the All India
Progressive Women's Association, today condemned
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav
for supporting the 'fatwa' against Imrana by
Islamic seminary Darul-ul-Uloom and termed it as
an "indirect encouragement of anti-women forces".
Passing a resolution to this effect, the
parliament headed by the AIPWA's UP chapter
secretary Ajanta Lohit, who was barred from
living with her husband after being allegedly
raped by her father-in-law, demanded
rehabilitation of Imrana besides ensuring her the
right over the donations made by various
organisation for her upkeep and maintainence.
Arrangements should also be made for a free and
fair trial of her case, the resolution said.
Expressing concern at the "illegal" religious and
caste panchayats, specially in western districts
of the state, which were running their writs in
cases such as inter-caste marriages and rape, the
AIPWA demanded an immediate ban on them and
arrest of its members.
Demanding right to employment for every woman,
AIPWA said decks should be cleared for passage of
bills aimed at women empowerment.
Women activists hailing from various parts of the
state attended the parliament in which several
women recounted their tales of oppression and
suppression.
______
[5]
The Hindu
Aug 12, 2005
New Delhi
CITIZENS' FORUM CRITICISES RULING STRIKING DOWN IMDT ACT
Staff Correspondent
IMDT Act is one more law that made the poor illegal, says Arundhati Roy
* At a time when the rich are being offered
dual citizenship, the poor are not being allowed
to live in the country, says Arundhati Roy
* CCPD report demands the withdrawal of
powers given to the Delhi police to detect and
deport
Booker Prize winning Novelist Arundhati Roy along
with Dunu Roy (left) and Prashant Bhushan at a
meeting organised by the Citizen's Campaign for
Preserving Democracy in New Delhi on Wednesday. -
Photo: R. V. Moorthy
NEW DELHI: Speaking at a seminar organised by the
Citizen's Campaign for Preserving Democracy
(CCPD), activists, lawyers, and journalists
expressed concern over the Supreme Court's recent
ruling striking down the Illegal Migrants
(Determination by Tribunal) Act 1983 (IMDT Act).
Prashant Bhushan, Supreme Court advocate, said
the court had struck down the Act despite hearing
arguments on how the Delhi police misuse the
Foreigners Act 1946, to harass people who are
poor and who the police claim have migrated
illegally. While, under the IMDT Act (that was
made applicable only to Assam before the court
struck it down), the onus of proving that a
person is not a foreigner lies on the person or
government making the claim, the Foreigners Act
which is in force in the rest of the country,
puts the onus of proving that such a person is
not a foreigner on the person himself.
Criticising the Supreme Court judgment for basing
its decision on Article 355 of the Constitution
which makes it the duty of the Centre to protect
States against external aggression and internal
disturbance, Mr. Bhushan said that it was the
first time he had seen this provision interpreted
in this manner. He said the court had equated
illegal migration by Bangladeshis to external
aggression.
Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, who released
the Hindi version of `Democracy, Citizens and
Migrants: Nationalism in the era of
Globalisation,' a CCPD Report, said that the IMDT
Act was one more law that made the poor illegal.
She said that at a time when the rich were being
offered dual citizenship by the Government of
India, the poor were not being allowed to live in
the country.
The CCPD report has documented the round up,
arrest, the supposed `hearings' and deportation
of purported Bangladeshi migrants from Delhi. The
report notes that the Central Government has not
constituted a tribunal as required by the
Foreigners Tribunal Order 1964, to determine the
nationality of a person who is alleged to be an
illegal migrant. Under this Order, the Central
Government is required to constitute a tribunal
to give its opinion after giving reasonable
opportunity to the alleged illegal migrant to
make a representation, and produce evidence.
The tribunal is supposed to pronounce its
decision after considering such evidence.
The report has demanded the withdrawal of powers
given to the Delhi police to detect and deport
illegal Bangladeshi migrants from Delhi by the
Action Plan formulated by the Home Ministry in
May 2002, pursuant to a Delhi High Court order.
As per this plan, the Commissioner, Delhi police,
is required to set up 10 task forces to identify
illegal migrants, and each task force is assigned
a quota of identifying 100 illegal migrants daily.
______
[6]
INDIA: DALIT MOVEMENT AT THE CROSS ROAD
by V.B.Rawat
http://sacw.insaf.net/free/VBrawat11082005.html
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